


Just Like the Knight in (His) Story

by purple_bookcover



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Angst and Porn, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, FE3H Kinkmeme, Knight kink, M/M, Tragedy, Unhappy Ending, Whump, dark ashe, this is not a happy story at any point but they do fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:28:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25556620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_bookcover/pseuds/purple_bookcover
Summary: Ashe loves knights. He loves chivalry, heroism, fairytales.But Lonato is dead. Everyone is dead. He is a soldier forced to fight for a cause he doesn't even believe in. He loves those knights in his stories, but what happens when his own life is so very dark and bleak? What happens when he has nothing left to believe in?What if Ashe wants to kill the knights from his stories for what they've taken from him?
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 19
Kudos: 54





	Just Like the Knight in (His) Story

**Author's Note:**

> **Please note: This story is pretty dark. Ashe is not well. Knives and death happen. Dimitri is referred to as the "mad king." There is no happy ending.**
> 
> This is for a kinkmeme fill.
> 
> The prompt was basically to write a fic based on [this image](https://twitter.com/guessibetter/status/1175996912673153024?s=20) (I did get the artist's permission). Requester said no pre-timeskip, so I hope they'll forgive me for doing just a tiiiiny bit of pre-timeskip just to set up some background (they only bone post). 
> 
> Ashe thinks it's hot for Felix to be a loyal, chivalrous knight like in his stories.

**PREFACE**

Ailell burns around him.

The smell is cloying and thick. Felix fears it is not merely fire, tastes the horrible refuge of the fallen among the fumes. 

Dimitri is prowling. “Where is Judith?” he growls. 

“She will come,” Byleth says, their tone as dead as the landscape around them. 

This is what it’s come to, Felix thinks, a broken king led by a dead goddess. Or whatever Byleth is now.

The dust of the barren landscape puffs up in a cloud as Ingrid’s pegasus lands. She points across the boiling pits, the open sores spewing molten rock like puss. 

“There,” Ingrid says.

Felix looks. Everyone looks, all the scattered pieces of the mad king’s army. 

A cloud shadows the horizon, a darker smudge in this bright, searing valley. Felix feels hope, somehow, a fleeting flutter. It is shocking and brief. And then it is gone.

The host on the horizon carries banners and standards, but they do not belong to Judith von Daphnel. 

“We will fight,” Byleth says.

Dimitri merely snarls. 

Felix unsheathes one of his swords. It is, strangely, horribly, a comfort. This part he knows; this part he understands. This part has never changed, even as the world, and his king, have shattered. 

Arrows fly first, both sides of the battle darkening the sky with deadly bolts. Felix largely ignores them, wading into the fight. Arrows sink into the burning land around him. One skims close. Some day, he knows, one will hit – whether by luck or skill, it really won’t matter when someone finally puts him down.

Until then, he fights, carving through the front lines. There are no arrows here. Too large a risk of the enemy striking their own fighters. Felix is free to do what he’s always done best. 

There is one advantage to fighting among the burning pits of Ailell: Felix cannot tell how much blood he’s spilled. It seeps into ground already red and wounded. 

He is stepping over bodies to chase after his enemies when someone stops him, grabbing him by the shoulder. Felix almost whirls, almost cuts down the intruder, but he recognizes Annette at his side.

“There,” she says.

That single word sinks like a stone into the pit of Felix’s stomach as he follows where she points, as he gazes across the battlefield. Retreating soldiers flee toward the safety of their commanders, trying to regroup in the face of Felix’s assault. 

“It’s him, right?” Annette says.

Felix does not answer. He could not, even if he wanted to and he desperately does not want to. He blinks, willing the mirage before him to fade, praying the noxious fumes of Ailell will shift and stir and show him some new illusion born from the heat. The man trotting toward them surely must be delusion.

But in this burning pit, this red scab full of crimson scars, the blue of Ashe’s clothing is solid and striking and blunt. 

Felix assumed he was dead. It was a raw edge he carried in his heart for five long years. 

Now, more than anything, he wishes he’d been right.

#

**PART I**

Felix parries Dimitri’s spear, knocking it aside. Dimitri is sloppy today, frantic. He’s a little more boar than usual.

All the more reason to force him to fight properly.

Felix lets Dimitri recover, lets him regain his feet, lets him pretend at settling into something like a proper stance. He even lets Dimitri attack, remaining passive until the moment he must turn Dimitri’s spear harmlessly aside. 

Dimitri just keeps attacking, even when Felix slips past the point of his spear and into a range that is exclusively dangerous for Dimitri. Felix has complete control of the fight as his sword slides up the spear, the tip of the dulled weapon only stopping when it presses against Dimitri’s chest. 

Still, Dimitri snarls, jerking his spear as though the fight is not thoroughly over. 

“You’re being reckless,” Felix says.

“Again,” Dimitri says.

“No, not while your fighting is this sloppy.”

Dimitri growls low in his throat, but Felix ignores it. He’s not afraid of Dimitri, at least not in the training room. On the battlefield, in the spaces where brutality will be rewarded, away from the school where they train for war – these are the places where Felix fears his Boar Prince.

He turns away from Dimitri, hoping to get a different sword and work with the dummies instead. But Ashe is there, sitting on the floor, his bow still unstrung before him as he watches Felix open-mouthed. 

Ashe blinks, flushes. It’s pretty, glowing under his freckles, outrageously soft among all these sharp edges, and heat attempts to crawl up Felix’s neck in sympathy. 

He shoves it down. This, too, has gone on long enough. 

Felix abandons training for the day. He puts his gear aside, leaving the training hall altogether. He can come back at night, alone, when he won’t have to be with either monsters or saints. 

He only gets a few steps before he hears someone running after him. 

Felix turns, prepared to tell Dimitri or Sylvain or whomever it is to leave him alone, but it’s Ashe who’s running at him. He stops right before Felix, looking up at him with eyes too impossibly large for any reasonable face. Felix looks down into them, despite his need to leave, despite how much he hates eye contact, despite every wiser instinct telling him to suffocate the flutter in his chest.

“Why did you leave?” Ashe says.

“What?”

“Dimitri asked you to fight again.”

“I was done.”

“Why?” Ashe says.

Felix wants to snap, but for some reason he doesn’t. He knows what Ashe sees when he looks at Dimitri – and when he looks at Felix. It needs to be crushed, so why isn’t Felix doing it? 

“We were done,” Felix says.

“Oh.” Ashe sounds disappointed. 

He’s hugging something to his chest. Felix didn’t notice it at first, but now he sees Ashe’s fingers picking at the cover of a book. 

“Do you need something?” Felix says.

“I didn’t mean to...” Ashe says. “I mean, I didn’t want to bother you. I was just watching and thought...”

Felix tilts his head. Goddess, what is the boy going on about? Ashe’s mind rarely seems tethered to reality. Felix often finds his tangents difficult to follow. This is a new sort of confusion, though. Ashe isn’t merely day-dreaming. He wants something. Felix can’t entirely suppress the way his heart stutters at that.

Ashe holds out the book. “I want you to read this.”

“What?”

“If you want,” Ashe says. 

Felix takes the book. Damn him, but he takes the book. He turns it over, examines the cover. When he sees the title, the blood drains from his face. Even so, he says, “Fine.” 

Ashe beams. His eyes are wild with hope. Felix isn’t sure what he needs from this, what he expects, so he turns away, tucking the book under his arm as he leaves.

#

The book is _Loog and the Maiden of Wind._ Of course it is.

Felix reads it cover to cover, hating himself the entire time. 

Lonato dies.

Felix says nothing as he reads the book, not to Ashe, not to anyone else. He trains, he fights, he passes Ashe in their classes and in the dining hall. Ashe never asks about it, but Felix sees him watching from time to time. 

Felix finishes the gods damned book. He returns it to Ashe. Ashe accepts it, silent and pale. He nods. That is the most he offers, even when Felix admits out loud that he read the stupid thing.

That is all that comes of the matter. No more is needed, not while everything is speeding toward oblivion around them. They go to Remire Village and Felix is positive for the first time that Dimitri is beyond reach, that all of his worst fears are now inevitable. 

He trains alone and at night. That is not the only time Felix trains, but it is when he accomplishes the most. Being around the rest of his class is becoming unbearable. How can they smile, how can they celebrate birthdays and have ridiculous little dance competitions while everything burns around them? 

At night, Felix can train without reservation, without looking over his shoulder for Dimitri and wondering if he’s snapped yet. 

There is a night that is unlike the others. Felix is walking to the training hall in the dark and hears a noise above him. When he looks up, there is a figure sitting on top of the stable among the thatching.

Felix starts, hand going to his sword’s hilt. How did anyone even get up there? 

They have something in their lap. Their hands are busy. Do they mean to burn the place down and take the monastery with it? It’s an odd thought, but Felix can’t fathom any other reason to climb onto the stable’s roof late at night. 

He slips into the stable, hoping whomever’s up there didn’t notice him before he concealed himself. It takes a little searching to find the ladder that leads up to the rafters. He never noticed it before, but now that he finds it he wonders just how often students have snuck up to this place. 

Felix crouches, but there is no one up here now. He creeps around, keeping his footsteps quiet, resting his hand on his scabbard so his sword doesn’t rattle and give him away. 

There is a stack of boxes. Felix passes right by it at first, but on his second loop he realizes they are purposefully arranged. When he climbs onto them, he finds a spot where the thatching is a little thinner, as though it’s been carefully parted to allow someone small to wriggle through. 

Felix can’t help rustling the stuff as he peeks through it. He scans the roof, only his head poking out of the thatching. He nearly misses the slight shadow of the figure sitting on the roof.

They’re small, whomever they are, and now Felix can see that the thing in their hands is a book. They are tearing out the pages, holding them up, letting the paper drift away in whatever direction the wind happens to take them. Felix sees no fire, however, so he abandons caution as he pushes the rest of the way out of the thatching and onto the roof. 

The person turns. It would be impossible for them not to notice the noise. 

“What are you doing?” Felix says. 

“It’s you.” Felix recognizes the voice, even though it’s soft in the dark, even softer than usual. Ashe points. “Find a beam. Otherwise you’ll fall through.”

Felix heeds his advice. He crawls onto the roof, patting the straw until he locates a beam. He shuffles along it on hands and knees, feeling ridiculous but oddly determined. When he reaches Ashe, he readjusts to sit. 

“What you doing up here?” Felix says again.

Ashe shrugs. 

A book rests in Ashe’s lap. It’s eviscerated, gutted like a pig slaughtered for a feast. Where pages once were, there are only ragged remains. The paper is scattered around them, some stuck in the thatching, some fluttering to the ground. 

Felix swallows. “Ashe.” 

Ashe closes the book as though to hide the harm he’s inflicted. Felix can see the cover at last. _Loog and the Maiden of Wind._

“Nothing,” Ashe says. 

As though to prove his point, he tosses the book off the roof. It hits the ground with a slap. 

Felix doesn’t know what to do. This isn’t his kind of thing. He isn’t _good_ at this. Why the hell did he come up here to investigate this in the first place? Isn’t Dimitri enough trouble for him? Now he’s confronting Ashe and whatever self-destruction this is. 

“I learned how to read from that book,” Ashe says. “He taught me.”

A stone drops into Felix’s stomach. Lonato. 

Damn it, what is Felix meant to say here? _Sorry we killed your dad. You know, your second one. The first one was already dead._

He says nothing. Ashe fills the silence.

“Did you like it?” 

Goddess, Felix hopes he means the book, chooses to believe he means the book. 

“My brother used to read it to me,” Felix says. 

Ashe blinks at him. “I didn’t know that.”

“Didn’t seem worth mentioning.”

“My brother...” Ashe stops. 

Right, his brother. The dead one. Felix wishes in that moment Seiros would send a lightning bolt streaking down to strike him dead. How has he managed to make this even worse?

“My brother was gonna be a knight,” Ashe says. 

“So was mine.” 

Ashe nods. As though that makes anything better. As though that’s any sort of fucking consolation. 

Felix looks over at him, meaning to dredge up something comforting, something about the futility of knighthood, the senseless tragedy of chivalry. Would that help? He doesn’t know, but Felix has no other words for the heartache they’ve both experienced. 

Ashe is staring out at nothing. His eyes are glazed and unfocused. The monastery is all gray blobs, formless darkness piled up in a heap of nothingness. The moon is out, a thin, watery sliver cutting through the bleak shroud. 

Perhaps the way that silver light illuminates Ashe’s upturned face should be romantic. It’s certainly beautiful. Even Felix can see that. It makes Ashe look pale as ivory. Felix is sure there is some poetry about freckles and stars that would suit this moment, but it’s beyond him to summon it. 

He isn’t an idiot. He recognizes the feeling that clutches his gut, the warmth that suffuses his body. It isn’t something he can control, so he simply endures it. Ashe is beautiful. That isn’t new. But the desire to do something about it, to hold it in his hands for a moment, that is new. Right now, however, it is also grotesque. Weren’t they just talking about dead brothers? 

Ashe turns to him and Felix nearly gasps from the closeness of that lovely face. “Are you going to be a knight?”

Felix pauses. “What?”

“You train with Dimitri,” Ashe says. “You’ll be a knight too someday, a knight for the king, won’t you?” 

“I don’t think that’s likely,” Felix says.

“Why not?” 

“Dimitri is...” Felix could explain, should explain, but he fears that will be one hurt too many for Ashe. He shrugs. “I don’t want to be a knight.”

He meant this as a peace offering, a softer answer than the truth, but Ashe’s face falls. “You don’t?”

“Never did.” 

“I see.” 

Felix has done something awful here. He feels it in his stomach, churning like poison. He’s done something he can’t undo, not least of all because he doesn’t quite understand what sin he’s committed. 

Ashe lets out a sigh. “We should go back. The next time the knights make their rounds they’ll notice the mess.”

Felix looks down, remembering the scattered pages on the ground. “Right.” 

They climb out of the rafters, hurry down the ladder. The horses huff at the disturbance. Neither Ashe nor Felix comfort them. 

They walk in silence toward the dorms. Ashe apparently has the knights’ evening rounds memorized, a useful little trick. He’s sneaky, quiet, even quieter than Felix. It’s chilling. Felix realizes as they pass through the sleeping school just how much Ashe is capable of, how little people know about him. When did he learn to move about in secret? When did he learn how to memorize guards’ paths and slip silently between shadows? Why did he learn it? 

They reach the dorms. Ashe’s is on the lower floor, him being a commoner. They pause at the stairs and some part of Felix wonders if Ashe will try to kiss him here. That’s how it goes, isn’t it? They kiss here in the moonlight after talking about their dead families. But Ashe’s eyes are skittering around, alert and keen. 

“Out of time,” he says.

He leaves, entering his room just as a guard turns the corner. Felix can do nothing but rush up the stairs, hoping he wasn’t seen.

#

**INTERLUDE**

When Edelgard attacks, Ashe runs.

In the chaos, it’s easy for him to go ignored, unremarked, easy for him to get to the stables and take one of the shrieking, frightened animals, whichever one will heed him when he tugs it out of a stall. He gets a saddle onto the beast, barely, gets a bit into its mouth, but that is all Ashe has with him when he rides out of the stable, out of the monastery, into the burning ruin of Garreg Mach.

He knows his classmates are fighting, clashing with the soldiers assailing the school. But Ashe runs, urging the horse through the burning wreckage, over bodies sprawled across the paving stones. He thinks perhaps someone calls out for him, but he does not check to see.

He can’t go through the town, that much is made very clear by the attacking force pushing ever closer to the monastery itself. Their war machines have broken the walls, however, affording Ashe an escape route.

He charges heedlessly through a gap in the stone bordering Garreg Mach. If there are soldiers on the other side, he will die. No helping it. But he must try. He must keep running.

Some luck or chance places him on open ground. The horse is only too happy to sprint away from the town and monastery, clambering down the rocky, treacherous shoulders of the hillside Garreg Mach perches upon. 

By the time Ashe reaches the bottom, both he and the horse are panting, yet he cannot stop and affords neither of them a moment’s rest. 

He only looks back once as he flees. Thick plumes twist and curl out of the fires consuming Garreg Mach. The screams are a distant roar, dull and muffled. How many belong to classmates? 

He turns away, kicks the horse, forces the tired beast on.

They ride through the night, never so much as slowing, even when Garreg Mach vanishes, swallowed by forest and hillside. 

The horse starts to stumble near dawn. Ashe pities the beast, but cannot let it rest. 

When it collapses, Ashe hits the ground hard. He rolls across the packed dirt of the road, lying on the ground with his body trembling and aching. He’s bleeding, a cut on his lip, but nothing’s broken. When he starts to run, his ankle twinges, but it’s merely painful. He can keep putting weight on it.

He’s too late. 

He knows it as he runs. Knows it as he stumbles through the red morning, finally succumbing just before night falls again. He sleeps in the bush he’s fainted into and does not wake until the next day. Then he continues, stumbling on legs both leaden and hollow. 

It takes days to reach Gaspard, horrible, long, hungry days. He sleeps when his body cannot continue, drinks only if he happens to pass a well he might steal from, eats whatever he finds along the way. When he sees people, he hides from them. No one seems keen to chase after the ragged, bony creature scurrying into the underbrush. 

It is easier to find food in the burned out villages and towns at the outskirts of Gaspard, but something dark twists in Ashe’s belly. It only gets worse as he continues. What he will find is inevitable, but he carries on anyway, pushes past homes reduced to ashes and bodies twisted on the roadway. 

He knows the city, even in the state it’s in now. The knowledge he accrued living on its streets never abandoned him and serves to aid him as he winds his way through the desolation. 

The last time he was in Lonato’s home, his adoptive father was seeing him off, telling him he could be a knight some day if he studied hard, if he was diligent and persistent. 

He has been persistent in returning to this place, but Ashe Ubert is no knight. 

The rooms are ransacked. Books litter the floor of the library. Ashe crunches over shattered glass in the ruins of his shoes. The railing that used to border the stairs has broken off and lays in shards on the floor. Ashe stays close to the wall as he makes his way up.

Here is the room Lonato gave him when he caught him in the library. Here is the bed where Christophe would read him fairytales at night. They were supposed to lull Ashe to sleep, but they always had the opposite effect, making his mind whirl with possibilities. So often, Christophe had to blow out the candle and lay with him while Ashe chattered excitedly. His brother was always gone when he awoke.

And here is the room given to his siblings, too young and too frightened to be separated. Lonato would have given them their own spaces, but they’d resisted, even when they got a little older. 

Ashe pauses a few steps from the door. It is predetermined, what he’ll find here. His heart races. His feet are glued to the floorboards. 

He doesn’t know what finally pushes him forward, but he goes. He rounds the corner, steps into the room and finds Rowan and Fina right where he knew he’d find them. 

Inevitable, the way they’re huddled in a corner. Inevitable, the fear in glassy eyes. Inevitable, the horrible red smiles carved into their throats. 

Inevitable, Ashe falling to his knees, the silent, thick tears, the exhaustion and finality that drags him down until he sleeps right there on the floor.

It’s Gwendal who finds him. He gives Ashe food, clothes, a bath. He scrubs the dirt off Ashe’s back, makes sure he has clean water, combs his matted hair.

Ashe eventually asks, “Why?” 

Gwendal sighs before answering. “Lonato was a traitor. Edelgard has forced Rowe to pick a side. He chose to show he was not like Lonato by destroying everything that man ever loved. If you’d been here, you would surely have died as well.” 

“Rowe is the reason Lonato defied the church.”

“Rowe is a survivor,” Gwendal says. “He will always do whatever it takes to continue living. He must believe Edelgard will win.”

Ashe understands that, even if he doesn’t like it.

“Do you want to survive, boy?” Gwendal asks.

Ashe shrugs.

“Folks like us, we do what needs doing. We survive. And if we’re fortunate, we get to die on a battlefield.”

“What if we’re not?” Ashe says.

Gwendal does not respond. “Eat,” he says. “You’ll need your strength.”

#

**PART II**

Felix stands in Ailell, facing Ashe across the burning battlefield.

Ashe looks tall atop his horse. Perhaps he’s grown. The last time Felix saw him, he was charging toward the ruin of Garreg Mach. Felix had actually called out for him, but Ashe didn’t even turn before fleeing, leaving them all behind. 

Felix had always assumed he’d died somewhere in the city. In the aftermath of the battle, it was impossible to tell. So many burned bodies, each as unidentifiable as the next. Ashe could have been any of them, so Felix had assumed he was and carried the ache of that knowledge in some secluded corner of his chest for five long years. 

Clearly, he’d been wrong.

Felix has to fight through the last bit of distance between himself and Ashe. It isn’t hard. These are ordinary soldiers, folks from Gaspard. The presence of Gwendal only confirms Felix’s suspicions that all of this stems back to Rowe.

Ashe is not an ordinary solider, though, lacking a crest or not. His aim was good when he was a boy; it is sinister now. Anyone who tries to help Felix push forward goes down with an arrow through their throat or eye. Felix doesn’t know why Ashe doesn’t do the same to him. It doesn’t matter. He will or he won’t, but either way Felix will keep fighting his way forward. 

Finally, he stands before Ashe’s horse, bloody and exhausted, his sword sagging. His arms feel heavy. His clothing is as coated in filth as his blade. 

Ashe is unstained upon his horse, towering. His hair is a little neater than when he was a boy, but that’s where the resemblance ends. He is taller, larger in all dimensions, filled out in a way that scrawny boy probably never fathomed. How often has he pulled that bow? 

It’s not just that, though. The face Felix remembers, the face that was so lovely in the moonlight, is hard as a cliffside, jagged edges of rock carved by the battering of wind and water and time. His eyes are craggy. 

“Hello, Felix,” he says. His voice is the same. Somehow, that is worse than if it had deepened. 

“Ashe, what is this?”

Ashe cocks his head to the side as though confused. “I’m fighting you.” 

“Why?” 

Ashe smiles. It’s horrible, liking walking into a spider’s web, feeling that phantom wrongness sticking to your skin but not being able to peel it away. 

“What else should I do?”

Felix shakes his head. There’s a battle raging around them, but all Felix can do is gape at the man above him. “I don’t understand.”

“They’re dead, Felix. All of them. I’m the only one left.”

“Who’s dead?” 

Ashe laughs, more snort than mirth, and swings down off his horse. Felix grips his sword as Ashe approaches, but does not raise it. He knows it’s stupid, knows Ashe will probably kill him, but he can’t seem to lift his arms even in his own defense. 

As Ashe approaches, Felix realizes they’re nearly the same size now. Goddess, he really did gain a lot of height in those five years. 

Ashe stands before him, calm and casual, as though they’re still classmates just chatting in the monastery. His gloved hand caresses Felix’s face, though it’s far from soothing. 

“How have you been?” Ashe says.

“What?” 

“It’s been so long.”

Felix is still wondering if this will be how he dies, with Ashe stroking his cheek and smiling at him, when Ashe punches him square in the nose. 

Felix reels back, covering his face. Nothing’s broken, a fact he only knows because he isn’t choking on blood, but his eyes are watering and he’s lost his sword somewhere. 

Rough hands grab him, turn him around. Felix still isn’t sure quite what’s happening when a blindfold covers his eyes. 

“I think we should catch up,” Ashe says right at his ear. His voice sends shivers cascading down Felix’s spine. 

Ashe shoves Felix. He stumbles forward, blind, until he bumps into the horse.

“Up,” Ashe says. 

Felix is being lifted, his foot forced into a stirrup. He’s dazed enough to obey, his whole face still throbbing. 

Ashe climbs onto the horse behind him once Felix is in the saddle. Ashe gets his arms around Felix – a cage or a shield, Felix can’t quite decide. Felix is helpless to sit there against Ashe, his eyes still watering.

Ashe grabs him by the hair, forcing his head back. His voice is quiet, purring against Felix’s ear. 

“Be good,” Ashe says. “I really don’t want to kill you.”

Something in Felix is absolutely positive the threat isn’t idle. Still, he can’t help but think of the dozen ways he might try to escape. Even blindfolded, he might be stronger than Ashe. If he can surprise him...

“Ah, ah,” Ashe says and there it is, a knife against his side, promising a long and gruesome end should Felix resist. 

The horse starts to move. Felix has no idea where they’re going. The battle still rages around them. Maybe he can leverage the motion of the animal to throw himself off. But no, Ashe has him too tightly and something in his grip suggests he can feel every move Felix intends to make before he makes it. Ashe always had clever fingers; he opened more than a few doors and chests for them. He can probably feel Felix tensing in preparation to move.

No escape then. Felix moves to the next concern: Why? 

He gets an answer sooner than he expects. 

“Stop.” 

It is more growl than word, but Ashe heeds it. The horse snorts, nervous about the battle raging around it. Ashe is still light, however. The knife lingers against Felix’s side but does not press.

Ashe winds his free hand through Felix’s hair, pulling his head back again. It’s rough and sudden and Felix utters a little grunt. Harder to hold that sort of thing back when he’s still blindfolded and can’t see the violence coming. 

“What are you doing?” A softer voice. Annette, probably. 

“Hello,” Ashe says. 

“Ashe, what are you doing?” Definitely Annette. 

The knife prickles against Felix’s side and Felix has to grit his teeth to keep from issuing more pathetic little noises. 

“No, no,” Ashe says. “Stay there. I’ve got him.” 

“Why?” Annette tries. 

“To make sure I leave here,” Ashe says. 

It’s a lie. Even Felix can hear that. Felix has fought enough people to know when they care about making it out alive and Ashe couldn’t possibly care any less. 

This is something else. The way he’s holding Felix. The way the horse dances to one side. 

Ashe’s hand moves from Felix’s hair to his chest, hugging Felix against him like a favorite piece of jewelry. 

He’s showing off. 

Felix recognizes Dimitri’s growl, hears a soft word of warning from Byleth. 

“Well, we’ll be going,” Ashe says, unconcerned. 

He kicks the horse, still holding Felix against him as they ride away, leaving the burning battlefield behind.

#

They ride for what feels like days. Ashe sheaths the knife, but never lets go of Felix. There is always a hand somewhere on him, in his hair, around his chest, once even along his thigh.

Finally, they stop. 

“You’re going to fall now.” 

That’s all the warning Felix gets before Ashe pushes him off the horse. Felix hits the ground hard, incapable of bracing himself, but the forest floor is soft as a mattress and cushions his fall. Ashe swiftly binds his hands, leaving Felix to lie there on the ground while Ashe, presumably, sets up a camp. Felix can recognize the sounds of wood being gathered, the horse getting tethered and taken out of its tack, gear being laid out for the night. 

It is not a comfort when Ashe remembers him and returns. He peels off the blindfold. Felix blinks. Even the dark feels bright after so long without sight. 

Ashe crouches over him, eyes tracing him like he’s searching for something. He pets at Felix’s hair, pulling out the tie that keeps it restrained. 

“Why did you do that?” On the list of questions Felix should have in this moment, that one is far, far down the list, but it’s the one that makes it to the top. 

Ashe’s smile widens as though he’s laughing to himself. “I’ll make us something to eat,” he says.

He helps Felix sit up, but leaves him bound, propped up against the side of a boulder. The rock is overgrown with moss, an entire tree clawing its way over the stone to shade the little clearing. The ground is so soft it absorbs Ashe’s footsteps like a sponge as he makes camp and gets the fire started. It would be peaceful if Felix wasn’t sure he was going to be murdered at some point in this night. 

Ashe hums to himself as he works, skinning some little rabbit or rodent. When did he catch that? Maybe he’d already had it around? 

But no. Too much about this campsite is oddly perfect. There is already a char mark on the ground from previous fires. Felix is sure Ashe didn’t have pots and bedrolls on his horse during the battle, yet they are here now, set out neatly. 

“You’ve been living here?” 

Ashe looks up from nursing the fire. The flames attempt to warm his face, but it’s a far cry from moonlight. They cut instead, digging into the new, hard planes of Ashe’s cheeks and jaw. “Why, yes,” he says. 

“But Rowe...” 

Ashe cocks his head. 

“Did he not force you be at that battle?” Felix says. “You and Gwendal. Were you not there at Rowe’s command?”

Ashe laughs, loud and wild. “Oh my, no.”

“But...”

“Food first,” Ashe says. “Then I’ll tell you a little story.” 

Ashe eviscerates the rabbit, or whatever it is, discards the innards, cuts up the meat, skewers it over the fire. When he brings it to Felix, holding the stick of little cubes close so Felix can grab them between his teeth and pull them into his mouth, it’s delicious. Salted, somehow, flavorful, cooked just enough without getting tough. Felix hasn’t eaten this well in moons. 

Ashe seems in no hurry as he finishes his portion of the meal. He even washes the things he used to prepare the food. It’s eerie, like watching a ghost trapped in a loop of its living memories. How often did Ashe do this back at the monastery, back when they were students? 

He settles in front of Felix, sitting cross-legged on the ground. 

“I really want to cut that rope, but I think you’ll run,” he says.

“I won’t.” Felix is a fool. He should be lying, but even if he was any good at artifice, he knows what he’s saying now is true. 

Ashe knows it too.

“Very well.” He takes a little knife from his boot and cuts the rope around Felix’s wrists. He keeps the knife, watching Felix for a moment, but all Felix does is rub his sore wrists. 

Felix sighs. “Ashe, what the fuck is this?” 

“They’re dead.”

“You’re going to have to narrow that down.”

“Right,” Ashe says. 

Felix waits, but Ashe just sits there, looking at the knife, flipping it between his fingers without even seeming to see it. The motion might be charming if it were less grotesque. 

The breath that Ashe exhales sounds like it’s been trapped in his chest for years. He looks back up at Felix. The focused attention is even more uncomfortable than usual for Felix. He squirms as those fractured eyes pick over him. 

“I ran away so I could go to Gaspard,” Ashe says. The mad humor is gone, leaving only raw edges, like the torn pages of a book. “When Edelgard attacked Garreg Mach – that’s why I left. I knew. I knew I had to get to Gaspard. I stole a horse and ran, rode the poor thing until it collapsed. Then just kept going on foot.”

The fire is playing in Ashe’s eyes, ominous, like petrichor warning of a storm.

“They were dead by the time I got there.” 

Felix swallows. A tear slips down Ashe’s cheek, though his expression does not change. 

“They were only kids,” Ashe says.

Felix knows. He knows. But still, he says, “Tell me.”

Ashe smiles. He tells Felix. By the time he finishes, the tears have cut a trail down the side of his face. “They were the only ones left.” 

“Why?” Felix says.

“Lonato was a traitor,” Ashe says. 

“So? Lonato betrayed the church. Shouldn’t that have put him on Edelgard’s side?” 

“No, it put him in the middle. Put Gaspard in the middle, loyal to neither Rhea nor Edelgard. Rowe had to pick a side.” Ashe shrugs. “He thought he could gain some sort of favor but doing away with the last of Lonato and starting fresh.”

“By killing children, you mean.” 

“It’s a war,” Ashe says. 

“That’s not good enough.” 

Ashe smiles. The tears have dried.

“Is that why you were there with Gwendal?” Felix says. “To take a side?”

“No,” Ashe says. “I just wanted to see you.”

Felix blinks. His throat is tight. 

“I’ve been fighting for Rowe,” Ashe says, “but only because I knew it would eventually put me on some battlefield with you.”

“You could have just come back. You didn’t need to do this.”

“No, I did,” Ashe says. “I want to kill them, you see.” 

“Who?” 

“All of them. As many of them as I can.”

Felix isn’t sure if Ashe means him, Dimitri, the Church, Rowe or some combination therein. Perhaps he means all of them. That’s a terrifying possibility. Is he really so broken he has no goal aside from wanton destruction?

Felix remembers the boy on the roof of the stable tearing pages out of a book. How long has he been this way? Why didn’t anyone notice? 

Ashe is still flipping that knife between his fingers, not even seeming to notice the blade dancing along his skin. “Tell me,” he says. “Tell me about Dimitri.” 

Something clenches within Felix. A warning. 

“You fight for him,” Ashe says. His voice is a little breathier, a little warm at the edges. “You are his shield.” 

“Yes,” Felix says. 

Even that is enough to light up Ashe’s eyes, his whole face aglow in the firelight. Ashe scoots a little closer. Felix’s hands are free, but he doesn’t raise them to stop Ashe when he gets so close Felix can now hear the little pants issuing from his mouth. And still that knife flips around. 

“You protect him,” Ashe says. “You protect your king. You’re a good knight.”

Felix wouldn’t go quite that far, but he’s kept Dimitri alive more than once. That much is true. 

He doubts Ashe cares about the truth. 

The knife stops. Ashe places the flat of the blade against Felix’s cheek, a cold shock. He’s so close his lips nearly touch Felix’s, but he’s just watching. 

“Just like the ones in the stories,” Ashe says. 

Then his lips press softly against Felix’s, muffling any protest, leaving only the fantasy that Ashe has constructed for them.

Felix feels like he’s suffocating, like he’s drowning. Ashe’s lips are so light against his, just brushing against him, but they still snatch Felix’s breath away. His hands may as well be bound for how useless they are as he raises them to take hold of Ashe’s shoulders. Is he trying to pull him closer or shove him away? 

The knife glides along Felix’s cheek and tickles down his neck. Ashe draws back. 

Felix wishes he could stop gasping. Ashe seems perfectly fine, mostly unfazed, and meanwhile Felix is flushed and panting. 

Ashe blinks. Surprise, perhaps? The knights in his books probably didn’t kiss ghosts and feel their hearts in their throats, probably didn’t get flooded with yearning they’d bottled up for years and years. 

Ashe’s surprise melts into chagrin. He climbs into Felix’s lap, arms around Felix’s shoulders. 

Felix can do little but gape at him. His hands go to Ashe’s waist, but he dares not apply even the slightest pressure. 

Ashe shifts his hips a little. Felix knows Ashe can feel him under him now. 

“How long?” Ashe says.

Felix just knits his eyebrows, confused. 

“Since we were kids?” 

Oh.

“Yeah,” Felix admits. 

“Huh,” Ashe muses. “I never knew.” 

“Yeah.”

Felix swallows, throat bobbing. Ashe traces the knife idly along the back of his neck. 

“OK,” Ashe says. 

“OK what?” Goddess, what is going on here? What does Ashe want? What does he plan to do?

Ashe shrugs. “You can fuck me.” 

Felix’s eyes flutter through rapid blinks. His mouth drops open, but his throat is too dry to allow any words to escape. All he manages is a wheezing, “I...” 

“Why not?” Ashe says. “We’ll probably both die soon anyway.” 

Felix is tempted to protest that, but Ashe leans down to kiss him again. It’s harder this time, firmer, pressing Felix back against the boulder. Ashe writhes his hips over Felix in mimicry of the way their mouths massage each other. He licks into Felix’s mouth, sucks on his tongue, tangles his fingers in Felix’s loose hair. 

Ashe pulls away, setting his hands on Felix’s shoulders and grinding down, hard, right against Felix’s cock. Felix bites back a groan, but from the mirth on Ashe’s face, he knows he didn’t hold back much. Goddess, the way Ashe is working him just with those hips and through all their clothes has Felix clutching at his waist, pushing him down to grind harder. His ass is firm, his thighs squeezing in around Felix. 

Felix gets a hand between them to rub over Ashe’s pants. It’s rough and sloppy, but he can feel Ashe getting hard too, straining against his pants. 

They’re humping like stupid kids, smashing their bodies together haphazardly, but gods, if it isn’t making Felix’s entire body crackle like lightning is coursing through him. Pathetic noises wheeze from his throat, from his chest, dragged out with every devious roll of Ashe’s hips. 

“Tell me,” Ashe pants, his voice gone breathy, “tell me … about him. Tell me … how you … _fuck_ … how you...”

Felix knows what he wants. Humiliating though it is to hear aloud, Felix will say just about anything to keep that taut, lean body against his. 

“Enemy with a spear,” Felix rasps. “Advancing from the flank. The bad side.”

“Bad side?”

Right. Ashe wouldn’t know. “Missing an eye.”

Ashe groans at that. It’s macabre, but it burns through Felix’s chest. 

“Dimitri couldn’t see it coming,” Felix says. 

He pulls Ashe near, grasps his hair, clings to a thigh. Felix gets Ashe’s head close, so he can speak right into his ear. 

“I deflected the strike,” Felix says. “Dimitri looked … surprised, alarmed. He … he...” 

Gods, it’s hard to talk. Ashe has managed to get a hand down to palm at Felix’s cock. He’s sinking his teeth into Felix’s shoulder, whining as he squeezes Felix’s dick. 

“He … _goddess_.”

“Talk,” Ashe says. “Tell me. Say it.”

Felix tilts his head back with a groan and Ashe goes for his exposed throat, alternating between biting and sucking. His hand is cupping Felix. Ashe is grinding against it, his hips still working along with all the rest.

“I saved him,” Felix pants. “I c-cut down the … whoever it was. Dimitri, he saw me do it. He … nnn … he just nodded.” 

“Yeah,” Ashe says. “Yeah he did.” 

“I … stayed with him. Wouldn’t leave him. Too dangerous.”

“Mmm.” 

Ashe starts plucking at the laces of Felix’s pants, but he doesn’t dip inside, not yet. He waits and Felix shoves the words out of his throat.

“I stayed at his side,” Felix says. “I stayed with him. I fought with him. I was … I was his shield. I protected his bad side, where he can’t see. I refused to leave him. I was … I was there the whole time, keeping him safe. My … my king.”

“ _Yes._ ”

Ashe’s hand plunges into Felix’s pants, finds his throbbing cock, wraps around it so tight and good. Felix is whimpering even before Ashe starts jerking up and down his length. 

The knife is gone. Ashe is pumping him with one hand and tugging Felix’s hair with the other. It’s almost painful, and not just because of the pulling. Felix’s body is so tight he feels like a glass plummeting toward the ground, doomed to shatter. But goddess, does the fall feel incredible. 

Ashe gets up suddenly. Felix nearly protests, but Ashe shucks aside his coat and tunic and pants, flinging them into the dark. He stands over Felix, cock so hard it’s glistening with precum. 

Felix is seized by a sudden need. He throws off his shirt, shimmies down his pants and spats, and grabs Ashe’s thighs, jerking him forward, guiding Ashe’s cock into his mouth, slurping up the slickness already there, adding more as he bobs up and down the entire length. 

Ashe gasps – actual surprise, this time – and sets a hand on Felix’s head, encouraging him to move deeper, faster. Ashe’s cock is thicker than he expected, filling his mouth wonderfully. Felix breathes through his nose to take it deeper, yearning to feel that pressure all the way to the back of his throat. 

“Do you do this for your king, too?” Ashe says. “Do you get on your knees for him when he demands it?” 

He doesn’t, but Felix is prepared to say anything he needs to, so he just moans, letting Ashe weave his own fiction. Anything that’ll keep him shoving his cock into Felix’s mouth with lusty jerks of his hips. 

Ashe tears himself free of Felix’s mouth and Felix has a terrible moment of wondering if he wasn’t convincing enough, if he’ll need to spin some tale of sucking off Dimitri. Felix is no storyteller, but if the goddess is merciful he’ll get through it just this once. 

But Ashe just lowers to his knees, bringing himself back down to eye level with Felix. Felix doesn’t realize what he’s doing until Ashe clutches his shoulder and groans. His other hand is behind him, working himself open. 

Felix flushes with warmth. His cock twitches up against him. 

“We don’t have...” 

Felix curses his stupid, imbecile mouth for speaking, but Ashe laughs. He takes his fingers out of himself. The faint glow of the firelight makes them shiny with whatever slickness coats them.

How? When? 

Clever fingers, Felix remembers. 

In any case, it doesn’t matter. It’s not his ass that’s about to get stuffed. If Ashe wants it, Felix is more than willing to provide. 

And goddess, does Ashe want it.

Felix knows from the trembling in Ashe’s body as he grips Felix’s shoulder in one hand and Felix’s cock in the other. He knows from how quickly Ashe lowers down, forces the head inside himself. He knows from the sound that issues from somewhere deep in Ashe’s chest as he takes Felix in. 

Ashe slides down, grimacing and grunting, but pushing until he’s almost sitting flat on Felix with Felix completely sheathed inside him. 

There, he pauses. Felix’s hands linger at the small of Ashe’s back. His mouth drops open around gasps. And Ashe just goes on sitting there, wincing and smiling in turn, digging into Felix’s shoulders for support. 

Felix should feel uncomfortable with all that attention focused so intensely on him, but he can’t seem to look away as Ashe merely goes on gazing at him. Felix fears the blush rising in his cheeks is more than simple lust. He fears it more when Ashe dislodges one hand to brush his fingers so, so softly against Felix’s cheek. 

Ashe’s deft fingers wander, but this time they don’t pull or grip or tug. A single fingertip traces along the planes of Felix’s face, touches his parted lips, trails up to his temple to tuck back his hair. Felix fears he could come just like this, just from Ashe sitting on him and barely touching him, just from Ashe looking at him like this. 

Ashe holds his chin lightly, so lightly, and leans forward to kiss him. It’s like flower petals sliding silken across Felix’s mouth. Felix closes his eyes, holding something tight and trembling behind them. Perhaps this moment was inevitable ever since the day Felix found Ashe sitting on that roof. Perhaps they’ve been tumbling toward this ever since that night. Perhaps it’s just dumb luck.

Ashe eases away.

“Ashe, I--”

Ashe presses a finger to the lips he just kissed. “Shh.” 

His gaze does not waver, but his hips shift, dragging Felix around inside him. Ashe leans their foreheads together, holding Felix by the back of his head as he starts to swirl his hips around. 

Ashe’s breath puffs hot in Felix’s face. Felix swallows it down, tastes his bitter gasps. There is still something sweet there, if Felix focuses hard on only that. 

Felix reaches for Ashe’s ass. It’s just as firm as it felt through his pants. He helps Ashe roll, helps him drag along Felix’s dick. They could make more progress if they weren’t clinging to each other, if they were willing to put more space between their mouths. But Felix only squirms closer the moment the thought crosses his mind. 

He tilts his head so he can taste Ashe’s mouth again. Felix sucks Ashe’s bottom lip before prodding his tongue into Ashe’s mouth, licking around inside. Ashe whines and moans, letting Felix inside everywhere he can. He slams his hips up and down. It’s shallow, but powerful, and somehow all the more intoxicating for that. 

Felix is breathless, suffocating, but he keeps licking into Ashe, keeps sharing that bitter breath between them until they’re both light-headed from lack of oxygen. He doesn’t care. He just wants Ashe closer, wants him everywhere, until there’s no other air left in the world. 

“Felix,” Ashe gasps. 

It comes out garbled, but Felix understands, hears the desperation in it, _tastes_ it.

Saliva stubbornly connects them when Felix leans away even a little to gaze at Ashe’s glassy eyes. He’s still bouncing atop Felix’s cock, letting out little whimpers with each jolt. Felix feels like he’s swelling inside Ashe, like somehow those walls squeezing him are getting closer and tighter. 

“I’m your knight,” Felix says. “I came to save you.” 

A groan claws out of Ashe and now Felix is sure his ass clenches tighter around him. Ashe plants his hands firmly, pushes hard, gets more thrust than he has yet. The motion makes Felix instinctively jerk his hips up. Felix didn’t realize quite how strong Ashe has gotten in the past five years, but he feels it now in Ashe’s powerful thighs against him, in Ashe’s grasp on his shoulders as he surges up just to pound back down and drive Felix’s cock deeper into himself. 

Ashe hugs Felix’s head against his chest, as though he needs the stability as he goes on impaling himself. He sings a series of nonsense: “Yes” and “oh goddess” and “fuck.” 

Felix hitches his hips as much as he can and clutches Ashe’s ass, helping him up and down. He’s tighter with every thrust. The heat isn’t just around Felix’s dick, though. It’s rising, boiling, like a geyser rumbling before it blows. Felix himself grumbles along. He wants to tell Ashe all the things he wants to hear, tries to mumble out something about shields and knights, but it comes out mangled.

Ashe doesn’t seem to care. He rasps a rapturous “Yeah” and somehow pounds down from an even greater height. 

And that’s about all Felix can take. He fumbles for Ashe’s cock, needing Ashe to follow him, needing to ensure he’s just as close. 

Ashe nearly shouts when Felix grasps him. His nails bite into Felix’s skin when Felix pumps up and down. 

Felix nips at the skin of Ashe’s chest. He can taste the salt of his sweat, feel the heat sloughing off him. He clamps his teeth down as the heat explodes up through his body. 

Felix clutches Ashe’s cock tight, probably too tight, but Ashe spills hot over his hand all the same. It’s Felix who ends up following, pulling Ashe as close against him as he can as he empties into his ass. Ashe cries out, a few more furtive spurts painting Felix’s hand and chest. 

They stay coiled tight around each other. Ashe’s thighs are still tense. Felix’s face is still hidden against his sweaty chest. Ashe’s hands are still gripping Felix’s head to hold him close as that inevitable wave crashes and calms.

Ashe lifts up a little and Felix slips out, but Ashe doesn’t go anywhere. He settles right back down on Felix’s thighs, the mess inside him dribbling out, warm and sticky on both of them now. 

Only then does Felix realize how coated his hand is, as well as their chests. He’s still examining his filthy hand when Ashe takes it, raising it to his mouth, looking Felix dead in the eyes as he licks up and down a finger until it’s clean. 

This is the moment when Felix knows.

Ashe sinks into his arms, limp as a doll. Felix hugs him close, heedless of the cum drying on their chests. Their legs and arms are tangled, indistinguishable. Ashe’s head rests on Felix’s chest, his silver hair brushing warm and sweet against Felix’s nose.

For a breath, there is peace.

Then something rustles in the forest. Ashe tenses but does not move. Felix sharpens his attention, listening as more crackles disturb the night.

Felix’s heart slams against his chest, awakened all over again but beating cold this time. “Let’s go,” he says.

“Mmm,” Ashe murmurs, as though they are cuddled up in a bed in some secluded fortress, safe from the world. 

“Ashe, we need to go.” 

“Hm?” 

“Didn’t you hear it?”

“Yeah,” Ashe says. His fingers trail along Felix’s chest. He sighs in contentment. 

“Ashe.” Felix wants to shake him, wants to force him to his feet. He settles for gripping Ashe’s arms, which draws Ashe’s gaze up. “They’ll kill you.”

Ashe shrugs.

Felix shoves Ashe off him. “Get dressed.” 

He doesn’t wait to see if Ashe obeys before gathering up his own clothes. There isn’t time to clean up so Felix just tries to ignore the filth as he hastily gets his pants and shirt back on. Everything is unlaced and haphazard, but when he searches for Ashe, he’s still sitting on the ground, merely watching. 

Felix growls in his throat. He gathers Ashe’s clothes, forces them on him. He’ll carry him away naked if he has to, but Ashe cooperates just enough.

Felix drags him through the camp, scanning for anything they need, anything they can gather quickly enough. There’s no time. Felix doesn’t know anything about horses; getting the beast back in its tack will be challenge enough without also trying to pack the saddle. 

Still, Ashe watches. 

“What are you doing?” 

“We’re leaving,” Felix says. 

“We?”

“Shut up.” 

Felix cinches the saddle after a couple failed attempts. Goddess willing, the damn thing won’t fly off the moment they ride away. Felix doesn’t have time to test it. That rustling is getting closer, bolder. There’s voices now. They’re calling for Felix, abandoning stealth. They must be able to hear Felix as well. 

Felix spins, grabs Ashe by the wrist, hauls him toward the snorting, nervous horse. The beast is right to be nervous. If they get away, it will be by inches. 

“Go,” Felix says. 

Ashe just stares at him. “I want to kill them,” he says. His voice never changes, still soft and blissful from the sex. “As many of them as I can.”

“Shut up.”

He’s rough as he forces Ashe up onto the horse. Felix swings up behind him before he can protest or squirm away. He loops his arms around Ashe, holding him as tightly as he’s holding the reins as he nudges the horse. 

The beast knows the way. At least it is wise enough to run from the voices and rustling headed toward them.

“Where are we going?” Ashe says as they clomp through the dark forest. They can’t go fast, but neither can their pursuers, Felix hopes. 

Felix has no idea where they’re going, no idea when they’ll stop running, if they’ll stop, if Ashe will fling himself off the horse and rush toward death while Felix is distracted or fumbling with the damn animal. He says nothing, digging his heels into the beast to push it on faster. 

“They’re the other way,” Ashe says, a placid sing-song. “I need to go the other way, Felix.” 

“You don’t. Shut up.” 

They’ll keep looking, Felix knows. If not for Ashe, for Felix. They won’t just let him disappear. But he’s going to try. He’s going to run for as long as he can. Will he fight them, if it comes to that? Felix doesn’t want to think about that just yet. There’s enough to worry about in this moment. 

Ashe shifts and settles. Felix feels more than hears him hum, the sound vibrating through his chest. “Just like the knights in the stories,” he murmurs. 

He resists no more, accepting the inevitable.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!
> 
> Did you know there’s an actual Ashelix Week coming up??? Oct 17-24, 2020, will be Ashelix Week. Come create some good, good Ashelix.


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